Кассандра Клэр - Draco Sinister

"Well, if I´d known that what you were looking for was a man with a really large…"

"No need to be nasty."

"…Contingent of armed forces, I was going to say." Draco grinned, a grin that turned suddenly considering. "Let me get this straight. You went back in time to retrieve Mr. Poncy Git and his army, and then you came back here?"

Ginny nodded.

"You could have spent months back in time with this guy. Getting acquainted. Very well acquainted. How do we know you didn´t?"

"You don´t." Ginny spoke serenely.

"And are you going to provide any further clarification on that?"

"Nope."

"And now you´re just trying to annoy me," Draco observed.

"Yes, I am," said Ginny. "And by the way, behold my success."

"I thought all you Weasleys were supposed to be nice people," said Draco, looking somewhat mournful.

Ginny suppressed another grin. "Thereś a lot about me you don´t know," she said.

Draco gave her a long look. "Apparently," he said, and she got the feeling that he wasn´t, after all, actually angry, and that he was playing with her as he often did. Usually, however, he won. This time, she had a feeling it was a draw. She felt his considering glance on her and realized that she was shivering in the cool night breeze.

"You´re cold," he observed, and pulled off the black sweater he was wearing. The resultant static electricity haloed his silver hair around his head. He had another black shirt on underneath, the sleeve of which was torn. Always black, she thought. "Take it," he said.

"I´m really fine, Draco."

"Come on. You gave me your sweater once."

She blinked. It took her a moment before she remembered that she had given him her cardigan to dry his hair with back at the Manor the week before. A little grudgingly, she reached out and took the sweater. She was about to thank him when a voice spoke up from behind them. "According to Feroluce, he had a good time with you two." It was Ben, hands in pockets, looking vaguely amused. "You let him breathe fire."

Ginny felt herself blush. "Just the once."

Ben smiled. "Itś all right." Ginny noticed something she had noticed seen before, which was that he seemed to be avoiding looking at Draco. When he had first seen him, kneeling over Ron, he´d done an astonished double-take, and nearly dropped the stretcher he had been holding at wandpoint. As for Draco, he´d barely reacted to Ben. He looked at him once, hard, and Ginny almost saw him thinking, Thatś not Harry. As far as she could tell, he had responded more to the Gryffindor regalia — cloak, sword, and scabbard — than to Benś actual, physical resemblance to Harry. She had a feeling Draco had a sort of recognition of Harry that went beyond the way he looked to the way he was. He would probably recognize Harry in the pitch dark.

She had already brought Ben up to date on what had happened at the top of the tower while they waited outside the mediwitchś tent; now he proceeded to fill them in on the armyś efforts to get into Slytherinś castle. They walked as they talked, back through the tents towards the walls of the castle, where the army was grouped.

They were a mass of huddled figures in the darkness, punctuated by bursts of wandlight. A discontented buzzing rose from them, as if from a hive of wasps.

"They don´t seem happy," Draco observed dryly.

Ben shook his head. "Itś no use," he said, looking frustrated. "There are wards up all around the castle that prevent this number of people from entering. We could try climbing over the walls one by one, but thatś like asking to be picked off by Slytherinś army of Dark creatures. Have you ever seen veela when they get angry? I don't want to subject my men to that until I have to. If we´re going to attack, we need to attack in numbers, we need to attack in force — "

"We need to attack in leather tights," added Draco.

"Would you like to borrow a pair?" Ben asked him, without missing a beat.

"Draco, shut up," said Ginny.

"Is there no magical way to take the wards down?" Draco asked.

"We´ve been trying, of course," said Ben. "I thought perhaps you might have some knowledge, being the Heir of Slytherin. And I see he marked you with the signa serpens."

Ben spoke lightly, but his eyes on Draco were hard and inquiring.

Draco looked down at the Dark Mark on his slender arm, revealed where his sleeve was rucked up, just under his elbow. "Yes," he said tightly.

"Doesn´t that frighten you?" said Ben.

"I don´t frighten easily."

"You want to fight," said Ben, sounding incredulous. "You want to use that Living Blade of yours to cut down the darkness? Knowing what you are?"

Ginny met Dracoś eyes with her own. She could see the stars reflected in his eyes, a lighter silver against the dark silver irises. He looked intent, and hesitated a long moment before speaking.

"Maybe I don´t know who the enemy is any longer," he said slowly.

"Maybe itś me. I don´t know. But I do know who my friends are. I want to fight with them. If you let me fight, I´ll fight on your side. If you don´t let me fight — "

"Then what?"

"I´ll fight on your side anyway." Draco jabbed a finger towards the castle, looming huge and black against the dark sky. "In there is everything that matters to me in my life. I want my life back."

Ginny felt a brief flash of unaccountable irritation, but suppressed it. She knew Draco was speaking figuratively, after all, his mother wasn´t in the castle, and she certainly mattered to him. Still, it was true enough that he was quite unreasonable where both Harry and Hermione were concerned, and pretty much only where they were concerned. She had been, in fact, surprised at his fierce adamancy about returning to get Ron — and had then felt guilty for it. What kind of person would he be, if he hadn´t wanted to save her brotherś life? And what kind of person had she thought he was, and how could she be in love with a person like that, and was she in love with him? It was all very confusing. She shoved the thoughts down firmly, and looked at Ben.

"Did he have these wards up around his castle in your time? Do you know?"

Ben shook his head. "Armies were never able to attack Slytherin Castle directly; he always attacked first. The only force ever sent against him vanished."

"Well, they did arrive," said Draco. "It just took them a thousand years to get here."

"There must be some way to knock the wards down," Ginny insisted.

"If it takes Magid power, fine. Dracoś a Magid, even if he doesn´t know all that many spells — "

"Thank you for the ringing endorsement," said Draco.

Ben ignored this bickering. He was staring up at the sky, thumbs hooked into the scabbard of his belt. "Some larger kind of magic is at work, here," he said, looking somber. "Strange signs and portents

— odd lights in the sky. Not to mention that one of my best archers was knocked out by a falling ottoman. Something," he said, firmly, "is up," and barely had he finished speaking when there was a gigantic rending cacophony; the soldiers all around them yelled and leaped backward as the walls around the castle collapsed into rubble with a thunderous crash.

* * * * *

"Harry, what are you thinking about?"

"You know." Harry looked over at Hermione and gave her a wry smile. They were both a little out of breath from climbing what seemed like a thousand twisting stairs. The walls of the narrow staircase had grown steadily dryer as they had ascended up from the water, and they were mazed with rather pretty patterns of multicolored lichen and moss, in shades of gray, green and violet.

Both Harry and Hermione were still soaking wet; Harry had wanted to use a Drying Spell on their clothes; but Hermione had nixed that idea: "No magic while we're in the castle." So they dripped, and squelched with every step. Harryś drenched clothes felt pasted to his body, the scabbard seemed to weigh a ton, and wet locks of black hair kept falling into his eyes. The discomfort wasn´t much, however, compared to the worry nagging at his brain.